E=mc2 is a "sexed equation". Newton's Principia (a "rape manual")

NYU Dept. Physics ^ | Published in Nature, 9 July 1998, vol. 394, pp. 141-143.] | Richard Dawkins

[Helms]

The feminist 'philosopher' Luce Irigaray is another who gets whole-chapter treatment from Sokal and Bricmont.

In a passage reminiscent of a notorious feminist description of Newton's Principia (a "rape manual"), Irigaray argues that E=mc2 is a "sexed equation".

Why? Because "it privileges the speed of light over other speeds that are vitally necessary to us" (my emphasis of what I am rapidly coming to learn is an 'in' word). Just as typical of this school of thought is Irigaray's thesis on fluid mechanics.

Fluids you see, have been unfairly neglected. "Masculine physics" privileges rigid, solid things.

Her American expositor Katherine Hayles made the mistake of re-expressing Irigaray's thoughts in (comparatively) clear language. For once, we get a reasonably unobstructed look at the emperor and, yes, he has no clothes:

The privileging of solid over fluid mechanics, and indeed the inability of science to deal with turbulent flow at all,

she attributes to the association of fluidity with femininity. Whereas men have sex organs that protrude and become rigid, women have openings that leak menstrual blood and vaginal fluids... From this perspective it is no wonder that science has not been able to arrive at a successful model for turbulence.

The problem of turbulent flow cannot be solved because the conceptions of fluids (and of women) have been formulated so as necessarily to leave unarticulated remainders.

You do not have to be a physicist to smell out the daffy absurdity of this kind of argument (the tone of it has become all too familiar), but it helps to have Sokal and Bricmont on hand to tell us the real reason why turbulent flow is a hard problem: the Navier-Stokes equations are difficult to solve.

[TheBigB]

Uuuhhhh....yeah.

Can you make heads or tails of this one, Prof?

[js1138]

Math is hard. Let's go shopping.

[The G Man]

At first I thought this thread was about the BBC's accusation that Einstein "sexed up" his relativity dossier.

[socal_parrot]

Her action has led to my equal and opposite reaction.

[Alouette]

How many women do you know who have degrees in math?

I know at least one.

[longshadow]

The privileging of solid over fluid mechanics, and indeed the inability of science to deal with turbulent flow at all, she attributes to the association of fluidity with femininity. Whereas men have sex organs that protrude and become rigid, women have openings that leak menstrual blood and vaginal fluids... From this perspective it is no wonder that science has not been able to arrive at a successful model for turbulence.

Gyno-physics ping!

[Diogenesis]

Nobody can be this dumb.
A feminist is an engineer who knows what a convective derivative is with different types of fluid flow.

[dead]

I'll sooner make sense of relativity than of this article.

[billorites]

[Always Right]

Women are turbulent. It is no wonder men don't understand them...Q.E.D.

[Viking2002]

Huh? The laws of physics are 'sexist'? Huh? What?

[Always Right]

Huh? The laws of physics are 'sexist'? Huh? What?

No, Newton just sexed them up...

[Right Wing Professor]

Nothing to make of it. It's lunacy mixed with idiocy, with a little menstrual fluid added for flavor.

(Heh heh; I can hear the ewwwww from here)

It's also typical of the state of 'scholarship' in the humanities these days.

[Diogenesis]

Of course physics rules are sexist. Especially the left-handed (sinister) rules.

[Diogenesis]

Bad news for you. This was from the Dept of Physics.

Probably between their seeking grants to study this nonsense.

[TheBigB]

Ewwwwwww. ;)

Thanks!

[Ronin]

Camille Paglia would b**ch slap this silly ditz.

(Not that there is anything wrong with that, you see...)

[VadeRetro]

Satire? Some kind of a joke, right?

[Diogenesis]

THAT would be very masculine. Better to flood her with a
fire hose. That would be feminine.

[Helms]

You gotta go to the full article page(Postmodermism Disrobed)

[jonno]

bump(s)

[Billthedrill]

Yeah - it was worth a posting. But not a lot of people outside of the academic community are going to believe how seriously this stuff is taken by people with way, way too much time on their hands. I offer The War Against The Intellect as evidence.

[Johnny Gage]

[lelio]

Here's the Sokel parody paper that made it into Social Text. Fun read.

[Right Wing Professor]

Bad news for you. This was from the Dept of Physics

It's Alan Sokal's web page. He's the physicist who hoaxed a postmodern journal a few years with a completely gibberish paper about quantum gravity that they published, not knowing it was intentional nonsense. He's discussing Irigaray in order to ridicule her. And Dawkins' review of Sokal's book is favorable. As he says "You do not have to be a physicist to smell out the daffy absurdity of this kind of argument".

[Chewbacca]

So, was 'Chaos Theory' created based on the unstability of the female mental process?

[KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle]

Fluids you see, have been unfairly neglected. "Masculine physics" privileges rigid, solid things.

Is anybody else getting warm in here, or is it just me...? :)

[shhrubbery!]

Isn't Alan Sokal the physicist who published a totally nonsensical spoof of deconstructionism or whatever, a few years back, and got it taken seriously AND PUBLISHED in some 'respectable journal' of deconstructionism?

My memory of it is that it brought down the whole house of deconstructionist cards.

But it's still being taught in all the chic universities, of course, just like that other discredited idea: Marxism.

In other words, isn't this a spoof?

(Maybe that's what Dawkins is writing about? Don't have time or inclination to read that guy now.)

[.cnI redruM]

E=mc^2 is sexed! Oh well, that explains a story I heard about Einstein. He was walking along, thinking about some equation, and walked right past his wife without even recognizing her. I guess I know which one was on his mind.

[lelio]

Oh boy if you want some amusing, or annoying, reading check out Luce Irigaray ramblings in a google search.

[TheBigB]

Britney certainly leads to "stimulated emissions." At least, in my case...

[PatrickHenry]

Proverbs 9:13 A foolish woman is clamorous: she is simple, and knoweth nothing.

[Helms]

Absolutely.

[LonePalm]

I'm married to one. She doesn't talk like this.

Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)

[TomB]

Luce, looking ravishing in her finest role......

Don Corleone, I am honored and grateful that you have invited me to your daugh-- ter's wedding...on the day of your daughter's wedding. And I hope that their first child be a masculine, er....., no, feminine, child. I pledge my ever-ending loyalty. -- For your daughter's bridal purse.

[wildbill]

I don't know which is worse, the rape of science in the name of postmodernism and feminism or the nuttification of liberal arts under the same banners.

Scientists can easily defend themselves, but poor college students in the liberal arts, especially English and literature often have no clue that they're being bamboozled by nonsense.

One feminist writer claims all writing up to modern times was misogynist because it was done with a pen--the dreaded phallic symbol. I asked the professor about cuniform writing and was tagged as a troublemaker.

[Right Wing Professor]

Count yourself lucky. I had to expound of the difference between 'stimulated emission' and 'spontaneous emission' in class this morning, all the while reminding myself that if I cracked the slightest smirk, I'd be in deep doo-doo.

[ATOMIC_PUNK]

Whereas men have sex organs that protrude and become rigid, women have openings that leak menstrual blood and vaginal fluids...

She must not get aroused much if she thinks all she does is leak fluids and bleed ! This kind of feminism is dangerous to real woman who are truly feminine.

[RikaStrom]

Oh you two have just got to see this!

[ATOMIC_PUNK]

In This Sex Which Is Not One, Luce Irigaray elaborates on some of the major themes of Speculum of the Other Woman, her landmark work on the status of women in Western philosophical discourse and in psychoanalytic theory.  In eleven acute and widely ranging essays, Irigaray reconsiders the question of female sexuality in a variety of contexts that are relevant to current discussion of feminist theory and practice.  Among the topics she treats are the implications of the thought of Freud and Lacan for understanding womanhood and articulating a feminine discourse; classic views on the significance of the difference between male and female sex organs; and the experience of erotic pleasure in men and in women.  She also takes up explicitly the question of economic exploitation of women; in an astute reading of Marx she shows that the subjection of woman has been institutionalized by her reduction to an object of economic exchange.  Throughout Irigaray seeks to dispute and displace male-centered structures of language and thought through a challenging writing practice that takes a first step toward a woman's discourse, a discourse that would put an end to Western culture's enduring phallocentrism.

Making more direct and accessible the subversive challenge of Speculum of the Other Woman, this volume -- skillfully translated by Catherine Porter with Carolyn Burke -- will be essential reading for anyone seriously concerned with contemporary feminist issues.

About the Author

Luce Irigaray, a trained psychoanalyst, holds two doctorates, one in linguistics and one in philosophy.  The publication of Speculum of the Other Woman in 1974 provoked the wrath of the Lacanian faction, leading to her expulsion from the Freudian School and from her teaching position at Vincennes

[jnarcus]

Ah but this feminist is even stupider than we could have possibly thought...there is in fact a neat and convient way to deal with turbulent flow that Barbara J Short and Sissmon Sommer developed while working for NACA/NASA...it is known as the T Prime method and their work is well documented. Leave it to a dumb feminist to overlook the work of a brilliant FEMALE gunner

[jnarcus]

Ah but this feminist is even stupider than we could have possibly thought...there is in fact a neat and convient way to deal with turbulent flow that Barbara J Short and Simon Sommer developed while working for NACA/NASA...it is known as the T Prime method and their work is well documented. Leave it to a dumb feminist to overlook the work of a brilliant FEMALE gunner

[mikegi]

Britney certainly leads to "self-stimulated emissions." At least, in my case...

Again, proof positive of the masculine theory of Miss Irigaray. Just look at the terminology used in lasers: stimulated emission, excited states, optical pumping. Laser journals are filled with this degrading pornography.

Take a look at this hag. I guarantee you that the only masculine "rigid, solid" things she's ever used require batteries.

[Helms]

'I don't know which is worse, the rape of science in the name of postmodernism and feminism or the nuttification of liberal arts under the same banners."

This much I know, the Humanities have suffered at the hands of pycho killers and in a sense it is dead. Know if we lose our science we are in real bad straits.

Are you starting to notice that the liberal wankers have these same Universities making all sorts of health claims.

Duke is all of what is thoroughly Postmodern, like Harvard/Yale with better climate.

[TheBigB]

Sheesh. This reminds me how lucky I was to get out of my college physics class with a C. I did better in my Bio classes. Even better in my Poli Sci electives. :)

[Helms]

Psychoanalysis and Lucan are all early Postmodernist vocabulary. Remember psychoanalysis coming to America peaching allot of German thinking through Adler Jung, Jaspers etal.

Psychoanalysis was a religion and philosophy but very dangerous. The ego and subconscious were concepts cooped by Freud from a whole foundation of German Philosophy.

[PsyOp]

E=mc2 where:

E=Extreme Absurdity

m=feminism

c=leftism

[Redcloak]

Whereas men have sex organs that protrude and become rigid, women have openings that leak menstrual blood and vaginal fluids... From this perspective it is no wonder that science has not been able to arrive at a successful model for turbulence.

Ladies, if what's comin' outta there has observable turbulance, you need to see a doctor!

[Southack]

The entire academic "deconstructionist" movement has finally gone mad.